er lived through. One afternoon he heard
that Tim Grayson had gone back west. Mrs. Kitty told it mournfully.

"Of course, this means that Freda has refused him," she said. "She is
such an odd girl."

Roger went straight out to Lowlands. He found Freda in the snuggery
and held out his hands to her.

"Freda, will you marry me? It will take a lifetime to tell you how
much I love you."

"But the Ideal?" questioned Freda.

"I have just discovered what my ideal is," said Roger. "She is a dear,
loyal, companionable little girl, with the jolliest laugh and the
warmest, truest heart in the world. She has starry grey eyes, two
dimples, and a mouth I must and will kiss--there--there--there! Freda,
tell me you love me a little bit, although I've been such a besotted
idiot."

"I will not let you call my husband-that-is-to-be names," said Freda,
snuggling down into the curve of his shoulder. "But indeed, Roger-boy,
you will have to make me very, very happy to square matters up. You
have made me so unutterably unhappy for two months."

"The pursuit of the Ideal is ended," declared Roger.

The Softening of Miss Cynthia

"I wonder if I'd better flavour this cake with lemon or vanilla. It's
the most perplexing thing I ever heard of in my life."

Miss Cynthia put down the bottles with a vexed frown; her perplexity
had nothing whatever to do with flavouring the golden mixture in her
cake bowl. Mrs. John Joe knew that; the latter had dropped in in a
flurry of curiosity concerning the little boy whom she had seen about
Miss Cynthia's place for the last two days. Her daughter Kitty was
with her; they both sat close together on the kitchen sofa.

"It _is_ too bad," said Mrs. John Joe sympathetically. "I don't wonder
you are mixed up. So unexpected, too! When did he come?"

"Tuesday night," said Miss Cynthia. She had decided on the vanilla and
was whipping it briskly in. "I saw an express wagon drive into the
yard with a boy and a trunk in it and I went out just as he got down.
'Are you my Aunt Cynthia?' he said. 'Who in the world are you?' I
asked. And he says, 'I'm Wilbur Merrivale, and my father was John
Merrivale. He died three weeks ago and he said I was to come to you,
because you were his sister.' Well, you could just have knocked me
down with a feather!"

"I'm sure," said Mrs. John Joe. "But I didn't know you had a brother.
And his name--Merrivale?"

"Well, he wasn't any relation really. I was about six years o